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I have found peace in informing some friends and family that things are not going well and that I can not do things on my own. “Only as sick as your secrets” does not only apply to drinking – I feel freed now of a burden I did not really know I carried. Trying to ‘keep up appearances’ – I have been doing that so long that I do not even recall not feeling like I had to lie about what was going on.

There are a few thoughts / habits of thinking stuck in my head and the idea that asking for help means that I am helpless, have no control, am handed over to the mercy of whomever is one of them. This has been so in my youth and has stuck with me. Nah, don’t want to go there.

Today a friend came over and we did this exercise of ‘hey, I can make a modern art painting’ (NOT! ;-)). It was real good fun, trying to empty our heads, trying to detach from the outcome. Noticing that this was not possible and noticing all the stupid thoughts and feelings we have over putting paint on a piece of paper. 🙂 Good fun. Lousy results. 🙂 Loving it.

Well, the friend who visited is one of the women who helped my through my darkest period before I quit drinking. Just by being there with other friends on a weekly base and going out for diner. We would have so much joy to be together that it carried me through the week. Over the years we have become closer and today I opened up about ‘not being able to do this on my own anymore’. And as the others had said before her: “Thank god that you are finally giving in.”

We spoke about how I feel SO MUCH better now I spoke out. And how the force of denial kept me away from my core / my truth. And the energy that this denial costs. Not living in my core, not finding my feeting because of that. It is amazing. And I am grateful (well, in a bit of a sour way, true ;-)) that I can now, consciously and sober realise how this works. How much pressure denial puts on a person, how much energy it takes. It is amazing. I feel like I am rediscovering living.

Not sure how the practical side is going to work out. Need to speak with some people I guess and from there a plan will be drawn but actually – and I see some patterns here…. – I think I can do it from here myself. Bwaaahahahaa….. eh… yeah. Pattern? Like signing up for detox and counselling and then doing it by myself. 😀

So…. the challenge now is to not go into the idea that I am handed over like a lamb to the slaughter so that I do not have to run for my life in order to get out. And also, not to go into the help that ends up getting me hooked up to pills. Funny how fear for things is building up inside at the same time relaxation comes in from the other side.

There is something funny going on: yesterday and today I have not felt so at ease with myself since, say I was 14 years old (pre drinking) and on the other hand there is this fear of getting stuck in a system building. Like I am maintaining the balance of misery. That would be food for thought. I feel it is a tendency. An unlucky one. Because it will never get me to relax.

Aaah, hanging on to misery is familiar. It gives me structure. Humpf. 😦 Maybe I should have more faith.

Maybe, one of these days I could read through my blogs and note down all the things I have noticed in these lasts years. These energetic tendencies. Would be a great plan. Hahaha, would I dare to? 🙂 Would you dare to do that with your own blog / diary?

I am HAPPY THAT I QUIT!!!! 🙂 And a woman who loves herself would be in bed by now.

And since I got your attention a little WordPress tip about adding internet links to your WordPress post. Ever so now and then I go in teaching mode, today is the day.

PUTTING LINKS IN YOUR POSTS

You can add links to other internet pages by clicking the Insert/edit link button in the button bar in the top:

A pop-up appears:

URL
In the top field URL you copy-paste the full internet address (http://…&#8230; ) to the page you want to link to. You can actually link back to your own posts as well. See below under ‘Link to existing content’.

LINK TEXT
In the second box ‘Link Text’ you can write text, a word or a sentence, which appears blue in your post. When people click this link they will be linked to the link you proposed.

I mainly do not type in the Link Text box. I do it the other way around: I select the text in my post which I want to turn blue and then press the Link/edit button. This way the ‘to be linked to text’ is already automatically filled in in the Link Text field.

OPEN LINK IN A NEW WINDOW/TAB
Check this box so that your reader will open the link in a new browser tab. This is a good option because they will not have to press the ‘Page back’ button to return to your post. They can just close the tab of the linked page and automatically come back to your post and read the rest. Why is this important? Well, some external sites do not even let the reader return to your original post! So the reader needs to restart WordPress, find your post, check where they left off and then continue reading. :-(. Checking this box prevents all of that.

LINK TO EXISTING CONTENT
First time you use ‘Insert/edit link’ this list could be empty, not sure. After that it fills with the links you have used before and the headers of posts you have written before (more recently). Scroll up and down to find links and select by clicking them.

CANCEL / ADD
Add the link to your post by clicking the Add button. And obviously Cancel if you want to cancel.

EDIT LINK
If there is something wrong with the link in your post you can select the link in your text by clicking the blue text. A small pop-up will appear. Pressing the pencil button will bring you back to the edit mode. Pressing the x button will remove the link.

I just removed the above link and then realised that I had closed the tab with the external link I was linking to. So I pressed Ctrl – Shift – T simultaneously. This restores tabs which you have closed. Pressing this button combination several times restores all the tabs which you have closed in the session you had in this browser. Ctrl. – Shift – T does not work after closing and reopening your browser. When you need to find historical internet pages after that having closed your browser you can open the browser again and browse through its history – there is a button for that somewhere. Unless obviously your safety settings are on automatically deleting browser history.

FYI: I found out that with Ctrl – Shift – T I can actually return INTO my online banking program without entering my username and password again! So…. always logout when using online banking programs, never just close the tab.

Hope this post has been of help to somebody. 🙂

I am happy that I quit. Mostly because now there is a possibility to take my life into my own hands. Not that I am using the possibility yet but I guess that is exactly the next step in un-addicting. I quit drinking, was stoked about that, came into trouble and developed other, less harmful, addictions but still… So there still is this big need to ‘not exist’ as I call it. And a lot of what I do in daily life, Netflixing, eating, being busy at work, having problems, getting lost in them, getting lost in depression, is part of how my addictive personality prefers to deal with life. Somehow I thing that self-destruction is safer and less painful than living and being present. And every time I consider this and try to feel into the situation of living and being alive I immediately connect that to falling victim to sexual predators. They don’t want sex so much as they want Life’s energy, to feel alive. When I play dead it will not happen. The other day I heard myself say in despair “I did not gain 30 kilo’s and turn grey to still be harassed!” that’s eh, and eye opener.

So, not living keeps me safe from pain. If I look at that behaviour from an addiction standpoint one could say that I choose to not live in order to not feel. That is an addiction to misery. I want to control my feelings by taking the dark look upon life. When I am sitting here writing this it is all very clear. And it is very clear how it is not helping me. And judging by my heart rate now it is also very clear that I am scared of changing.

Which brings me to my judgement about alternative medicine. On the one side I just love what I find in the fringes and outskirts of the medical world. On the other side I feel I ‘should be able to do this on my own’. I do not understand that. Ooh, yes! I do! It is the reverse logic of ‘if I do not go to the doctor, I am not ill’. :-). If I do not take extra care of me, it proves that there is nothing wrong with me. Ghegheghe…. I had that conversations with my mother once actually. She ‘invented’ this reverse logic of not going to the doctors.

Choice is what we have been given. I think it is good for me to to try this concept instead of being thrown around by everything and nothing. 🙂 Let’s see.

If I let go of my judgement about what I should be, what life should be like, what I should be able to do (transform my personality without external help) I can actually live and suddenly all kinds of possibilities open up. It is funny in a not so funny way, this denial of help. I do not want other people pushing me, pressing me, energetically racing in and trying to change stuff within me. I guess if that is how I view help I do not welcome it. Logical. So when looking for help I need to take into consideration that not everybody is able to give that what I need. Actually I realise I have this perception that if I need help, I am stupid, so I need to accept whatever people put on me and deal with them putting me down over it.

There is arrogance and pride in that from my side too: the assumption that needing help is stupid. Also I am thinking asking for help never used to be free. I associate being helped with others being irritated about that, being put down by helpers exactly disregarding what I ask for because they feel that I am not worthy of asking what I need, sighing, anger, irritation. The trade being: if I help you I get to put you down, to feel better than you and make you feel stupid. Much irritation and judgement. Guess that is a good enough reason to be afraid of it. 🙂

But I am happy that I quit, so I can actually have a look at those assumptions and possibly change the unhealthy ones. 🙂

A woman who loves herself would go let the cat in, have a shower, go outside, walk, do some shopping, cook something according to my new Ottolengi book and read a book tonight. 🙂

Wishing you a nice sober weekend. Do not forget to pay attention to the Halloween time of the year: take time to sleep so you can dream well and see what messages come through from the others side of the veil. 🙂